I've been volunteering at the Madison Science Museum, and we have a new exhibit opening next week. Here's a little bit about it. Stop by and see it if you're in the area!

Laser Exhibit

We are excited to be opening a new exhibit next week. Zap! The Wonders of Lasers will be opening on Thursday, February 25th. The exhibit will be open all day (2:00-7:00PM), but please join us for a reception that evening from 4:00-7:00PM to celebrate the occasion (refreshments will be provided). This exhibit features 12 interactive stations designed by the Wonders of Physics at UW-Madison. Ever wonder how the bar code scanner works while you're in line at the grocery store? How can lasers work as a cancer treatment? Did you know you can make music with lasers? Come explore the Wonders of Lasers and see first-hand how this technology impacts our lives.

A huge thank to Mike Randall and the Wonders of Physics for their hard work building these stations and also all our volunteers who helped make this exhibit happen! Especially: Michael L'Roy for the painting in the exhibit, Michael Treiman, Jacqueline Houtman, and Claire Steffen for labels and interpretives, and Ben Freeman for IT support.

In the last decade, more than 10,000 scientific papers have been published about the human microbiome. Somewhere in those 10,000 papers, I have to find a story.

I start with research. I read scientific articles, interviews, and biographies. I stream videos, podcasts, and webcasts. I talk to experts. I find sources that will help me provide historical or scientific context. I find quotes and anecdotes that will give the reader insights in to the lives of scientists. I fill my virtual and real-life desktops with everything I can learn about the subject. Somewhere in those stacks of paper and pixels, there is a story.

A story, whether fiction or nonfiction, is not just a series of events or facts strung together. Each element relates to the others in a cause-and-effect way to pull the reader along. I first find the heart of the story—the truth that needs to be conveyed. I build an outline based on the main points of that truth arranged in a logical order. Each paragraph builds on the information that precedes it, just as each scientific discovery builds on earlier work.

Once I have found the story and outlined the narrative, I fill it in.

Scientific papers have structure: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. In writing for a general audience, the same elements need to be included, without that strict structure. Each part of the story needs to have a motivation, a brief description of the methods the researchers used and what they found, as well as some idea of what it means and how it fits into the story. If I know of conflicts or obstacles, I add them for a more compelling read. Metaphors and analogies can help with comprehension.

Throughout the piece, I try to emphasize that science is a collaborative process. Headline-grabbing discoveries are made possible by years of basic research. Many scientists contribute their own findings, insights and techniques to the body of work.

I want the article to be engaging rather than exhaustive. I resist the urge to add material that is not related to the main narrative. All that research I do? The vast majority of it does not end up in the finished piece. But that’s OK. I like to think of a quote from a letter written to Laura Ingalls Wilder by her daughter, Rose. “Facts are infinite in number. The truth is a meaning underlying them; you tell the truth by selecting the facts which illustrate it.”

Tomorrow I fly out to Boston for the beginning of The Invisible Book Tour with coauthor Walter Naegle. Unfortunately, Michael G. Long, our other coauthor, has teaching responsibilities and couldn't join us. We will be accompanied (and driven around) by Jonathan Vogel-Borne as a representative of our publisher Quaker Press. To find out more about the book, go to my website.

For the most up-to-date information on the tour, please go to our Facebook page. As of May 1, here is the schedule:

Peek: ". . . our society puts up a wall between activities it deems “left brain” and those it deems “right brain.” Math and science inhabit one world, art and story (and comics) another. But this division is artificial."

Bayard Rustin: The Invisible Activist will be released this fall from Quaker Press. It was co-written by Michael G. Long (an academic who edited a book of Bayard's letters), Walter Naegle (Bayard's partner for the last ten years of his life and the archivist of the estate) and me. Here's the cover:

Over at From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle-Grade Authors, I wrote a post about the true meaning of Labor Day. Books about the labor movement and the people who worked hard to give us weekends and safer workplaces. Books about the children (like my grandmother) who worked hard in mills and mines before we had laws about child labor.

I'm a freelance science writer based in Madison, WI. I also write sciency fiction for kids. My award-winning debut novel, THE REINVENTION OF EDISON THOMAS, was published by Front Street/Boyds Mills Press in March 2010.